[clug] Re CO2 footprint of Searches: Storm in A Tea Cup or Deep Green Issue?

[Daniel Pittman]

Alex Satrapa <grail at goldweb.com.au> writes:
> On 09/09/2009, at 14:34 , jm wrote:
>
>> The think to keep in mind here is that these thing have huge fixed energy
>> costs and very low variable energy costs. To the example of  the printer
>> which consumes 24W in standby and 25W while printing.
>
> on a totally different tangent, I'm wondering why a printer requires 24W
> when on standby, while the computer controlling it "only" consumes 2W on
> standby.

Simple:

1. It costs money to make a device efficient in standby mode.
2. Consumers have only recently started paying attention to standby mode
   efficiency for appliances.
3. So, until now it was a *waste* of profit for a company to invest in
   efficiency in standby mode, unless that fell out by luck.

> I find it misleading to label something as "standby" when all that really
> means is, "lights on the front panel are switched off".

Usually that isn't *all* it means, but there is a world of difference between
"uses less power" and "uses less than N watts of power", for whatever value of
N you consider satisfactory. :)

Regards,
        Daniel
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